Thursday, May 3rd 2012
Bethesda Softworks Announces The Elder Scrolls Online
Bethesda Softworks, a ZeniMax Media company, today announced The Elder Scrolls Online, an MMO in development at ZeniMax Online Studios. The Elder Scrolls Online will be the first Elder Scrolls game to allow gamers to explore the legendary Elder Scrolls world with others.
The Elder Scrolls Online is being developed for PC and Mac under the leadership of industry veteran Matt Firor, who has spent the last two decades working in online game development. Details about the game are revealed in an exclusive cover story in Game Informer's June issue, which ships to subscribers and newsstands this month.
"We have been working hard to create an online world in which players will be able to experience the epic Elder Scrolls universe with their friends, something fans have long said they wanted," said Matt Firor, game director of The Elder Scrolls Online. "It will be extremely rewarding finally to unveil what we have been developing the last several years. The entire team is committed to creating the best MMO ever made - and one that is worthy of The Elder Scrolls franchise."
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is the most recent title set in the award-winning Elder Scrolls universe. Skyrim, developed by Bethesda Game Studios, was released in November 2011 and enjoyed worldwide critical and commercial success. Skyrim earned hundreds of 'Game of the Year' awards, including top honors at the 2012 Game Developers Choice Awards, the 15th Annual 2012 Interactive Achievement Awards held at the 2012 D.I.C.E. Summit, and at the 2011 Video Game Awards. Internationally, Skyrim shipped over 10 million units within the first month of its release, was the second highest grossing title in the industry last year, and is the fastest selling title in Steam's history.
The Elder Scrolls Online will be featured on magazine covers across Europe and in online stories in the coming months which will provide gamers with more information about this exciting title.
The Elder Scrolls Online has not yet been rated by the ESRB.
The Elder Scrolls Online is being developed for PC and Mac under the leadership of industry veteran Matt Firor, who has spent the last two decades working in online game development. Details about the game are revealed in an exclusive cover story in Game Informer's June issue, which ships to subscribers and newsstands this month.
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is the most recent title set in the award-winning Elder Scrolls universe. Skyrim, developed by Bethesda Game Studios, was released in November 2011 and enjoyed worldwide critical and commercial success. Skyrim earned hundreds of 'Game of the Year' awards, including top honors at the 2012 Game Developers Choice Awards, the 15th Annual 2012 Interactive Achievement Awards held at the 2012 D.I.C.E. Summit, and at the 2011 Video Game Awards. Internationally, Skyrim shipped over 10 million units within the first month of its release, was the second highest grossing title in the industry last year, and is the fastest selling title in Steam's history.
The Elder Scrolls Online will be featured on magazine covers across Europe and in online stories in the coming months which will provide gamers with more information about this exciting title.
The Elder Scrolls Online has not yet been rated by the ESRB.
100 Comments on Bethesda Softworks Announces The Elder Scrolls Online
I hope they will have a better system in this MMO
Lots of good information and insight into what the Online team is trying to accomplish.
Most people know I'm just a crazy old man who likes to keep people smiling. :)
The images in the links look like in-game shots to me.
They are not quite the level of detail as Skyrim, but look a lot better than run of the mill MMO graphics.
Time will tell I guess. I'm pretty psyched. I think an ES MMO will be outstanding if they don't screw it up.
On topic : This may sound dumb, but I hope they go with a reasonably priced subscription model instead of micro transactions of some other crap. F2P is all the craze lately, but the current models for funding the project leave a lot to be desired.
I guess the only model I would refuse to pay for is one that only allows me a time-limited access to content, ie $5 gets me access to three mid level dungeons, but only for 30 days, after which I have to pay again. I suppose some might argue that that's all the monthly subscription is, or that at least I'm just paying for something I play with then, but not continuing to pay for it if I'm not using it..... I dunno. I just know I won't pay that way :)
/buzzkill
Sorry.
what they did with SWKOTOR was stupid and their SWTOR isnt going that well either....
This, SW:TOR online, and WoW, TOR has already got roughly 1.7 billion subscribers which sadly includes trial/free first month players, and ways that's a decent chunk of MMORPG market. I know beth has great dedicated player base, but i think it'll take some advertising to get their name out there. Know plenty of gamer friends through steam that have no idea what elder scrolls is.
There are a lot of players that are locked into 6-month subs that they puurchased out of either faith in Bioware as a gamedev, or to save money by buying a bigger sub.
Once the six month sub mark + the 30 free days that Bioware gave a lot of their players runs out, the sub numbers are going to crash hard.
They have a lot of players who are currently subscribed but not playing.
As someone else pointed out, terrible PvP,terrible game mechanics, and lots of dead servers.
EA is just bad at MMOs. Every one they've put out or taken over has had the touch of death.
Bethesda is going to have to work hard to put out a game as bad as SWTOR. Hopefully they don't put out a WoW clone re-skinned as TES.
Zenimax is a pretty big company, they know that there's some big money still in the epic single player RPG genre. They are probably going to double dip with TES and Fallout MMOs as well as continuing with the single player RPGs too.
Looks a lot like the same images to me.
I wouldn't expect everything to look the same in the MMO as in the SP games given some of the technical issues involved in creating an MMO.
Also, they are probably showing off glimpses of new areas (and creatures) from places that are not in the SP games (ie. Black Marsh, High Rock, etc.)
Zenimax (Bethesda) always gives the exclusive stories to GI, so I would expect them to have real screens and concept art.
The "leaked" images look like scans of the mag article to me. I could be wrong, though.
Anyway ... I think an ES MMO is a fantastic idea, and I'm looking forward to seeing what they come up with.
The Beth forums are all awash with naysayers predicting the end of the ES SP line, but I think it would be really foolish for Zenimax to kill the cash cow that their SP franchise is, and will continue to be.